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Let's see, in 2017 Apple sold 216.76 million iPhones, so using round numbers let's say that in the next three years they sell maybe 600 million iPhones. Apple pays Dialog some $600 million, so I'm expecting that Apple was paying Dialog more than $1/iPhone for ICs in each iPhone. Is Apple just ensuring that their IP pipeline is more under their own control, instead of an independent company like Dialog?

Let's see, in 2017 Apple sold 216.76 million iPhones, so using round numbers let's say that in the next three years they sell maybe 600 million iPhones. Apple pays Dialog some $600 million, so I'm expecting that Apple was paying Dialog more than $1/iPhone for ICs in each iPhone. Is Apple just ensuring that their IP pipeline is more under their own control, instead of an independent company like Dialog?

Or Apple feels that they can do better on their own, possibly buy putting it on the SoC.

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OK, that makes some sense, but power management ICs have a large analog component which likely use mature process nodes like 120nm, so I'm not sure it would integrate into a 7nm A-series processor. At least back in 2012 Dialog Semi was using the 120nm BCD process from TSMC.

Apple may want to integrate the power management control in the SoC and use voltage regulators, LDO, etc. as IP. I guess that Dialog is using a mature node just because analog is more stable, and the chip cost less on 90nm than 28nm. Moreover, PMIC is a low complexity (low gate count) chip, no need to target advanced nodes... But the high voltage PMIC function can stay outside in the 120nm BCD.

Eric, I think that PMIC devices use an analog process called BCD, which is not the same as what TSMC uses for Apple's A-series of processors, so I don't foresee any integration of PMIC into an SoC.

Do you mean that there are no logic gates in the controller? That it's impossible to use LDO or Voltage Controller in 7nm? Obviously certain functions will have to stay outside the SoC and require a BCD process...